Today in nearly every store, transparent display containers are used for packaging and displaying almost any item imaginable, such as audio and video cassettes, hair dryers, office supplies, and even articles of clothing such as socks, scarves and underwear. Such transparent plastic display containers are widely used in packaging because of their many advantages over other available types of packaging containers, such as opaque, cardboard boxes. One obvious advantage is that transparent plastic display containers allow the consumer to view the contents without having to open the container. Other advantages of such transparent display containers include the fact that they are lightweight, sturdy, recyclable, easily set up and assembled, and provide a high quality look or appearance.
With transparent plastic display containers, it is also important to the packager that they be both "pilfer proof" and "selection proof." By the phrase "pilfer proof," it is meant that the container should be difficult to open in a store without using a pair of scissors or the like in order to discourage theft of items inside the container. By the phrase "selection proof," it is meant that the container should prevent the unauthorized customer selection or "swapping" of one or more items in one container with items from another container. For example, if a number of different colored scarves are offered in a typical "variety pack," the container should prevent consumers from breaking up the intended set of scarves in the variety pack by taking out certain scarves and replacing them with scarves of different colors from other packs.
Presently, some transparent plastic display containers are commercially available which can be formed to be both "pilfer" and "selection proof" as described above. Once such type of plastic display container is fabricated by the process of thermoforming. Thermoformed containers, however, have the disadvantage of being quite costly to manufacture and require molds of different shapes and sizes to form a different sized container for each type of product to be packaged. Another disadvantage of thermoformed containers is that they are molded to form containers that are already in their "set up" condition and, therefore, are not capable of being stored and shipped in a flat condition as with typical foldable cardboard boxes.
Other transparent plastic display containers, such as the container disclosed in commonly-owned U.S. Pat. No. 5,069,334, are advantageous over thermoformed containers because they can be stored and shipped in a flat condition and easily set up by standard packaging machinery or by hand. However, once they are set up, such display containers can be readily opened from either end unless the ends are truly permanently sealed by the packager. Although it is known to glue top and bottom wall flaps to seal the container, this method of sealing typically does not provide a sufficiently permanent seal so as to deter or prevent the unauthorized opening of or tampering with the container.
With regard to displaying one or more of such transparent display containers in stores to prospective purchasers, such transparent display containers are typically suspended from display racks. To facilitate such suspension, the containers are usually provided with an upstanding side wall extension or hanging flange having an opening therein such as a "J-hook" recess to allow the container to hang from, for example, a metal bracket in a peg board. Although many transparent display containers provide a hanging J-hook or the like in an upper extension of a side wall, this construction can be problematic because of the sometimes flimsy extension flange incorporating the J-hook which has the same thickness as the side wall. Thus, it is desirable to provide a transparent display container having a hanging flange with a J-hook or the like with sufficient rigidity so that the display containers will not unintentionally slip or fall off the rack.
Accordingly, in light of the aforementioned shortcomings of currently available display containers, there has been a long-felt need to provide an improved transparent plastic display container that is capable of being stored and shipped in a flat condition and set up by standard packaging machinery or by hand, less expensive to manufacture than thermoformed display containers, and both pilfer and selection proof by providing permanently sealed top and bottom walls. In addition, there is also a need to provide such a display container with a hanging flange having sufficient rigidity for hanging the container from a display rack or the like.
Moreover, there is also a need to reduce the number of steps needed to be taken by the packager utilizing such a container, and this achieved in one aspect of the present invention by providing a transparent plastic display container having an "automatic bottom" that is pre-sealed along at least a portion of one end prior to set up such that it automatically forms a sealed bottom wall when the container is moved to its set up condition. Moreover, there is also a need to provide a readily fillable display container adapted to receive product when the container is moved to its set up position. Even further, there is a need to provide a display container where the packager does not have to be concerned with accurately sealing at least one wall after the container is moved to a setup position and filled with product.